Selfishness

Henry Ward Beecher
No man is more cheated than the selfish man.
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William Makepeace Thackeray
“Next to the very young, the very old are the most selfish.”
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Joaquin Miller
That man who lives for self alone, Lives for the meanest mortal known.
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William E. Gladstone
“Selfishness is the greatest curse of the human race”
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John Ruskin
“When a man is wrapped up in himself, he makes a pretty small package.”
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Henry Ward Beecher
“Selfishness at the expense of others' happiness is demonism.”
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William Cowper
“Glory built on selfish principles is shame and guilt.”
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Lord Byron
We are all selfish and I no more trust myself than others with a good motive.
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Julio Cortazar
“Human history is the sad result of each one looking out for himself.”
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Sir Robert Baden-Powell
“The good turn will educate the boy out of the groove of selfishness.”
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Tertullian
“He who lives only to benefit himself confers on the world a benefit when he dies.”
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Author Unknown
“The force of selfishness is as inevitable and as calculable as the force of gravitation.”
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Gordon B. Hinckley
“It is selfishness which is the cause of most of our misery. It is as a cankering disease.
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Richard Whately
“A man is called selfish not for pursuing his own good, but for neglecting his neighbor's.”
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Neal A. Maxwell
“Whatever the mix of work, the hardest work you and I will ever do is to put off our selfishness. It is heavy lifting!”
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Henry Ward Beecher
“Selfishness is that detestable vice which no one will forgive in others, and no one is without in himself
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John Owen
“Selfishness is the making a man's self his own centre, the beginning and end of all he doeth.”
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Charles H. Parkhurst
“The man who lives by himself and for himself is likely to be corrupted by the company he keeps.”
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Henry Wheeler Shaw
“Take the selfishness out of this world and there would be more happiness than we should know what to do with.”
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Oscar Wilde
“There are many things that we would throw away if we were not afraid that others might pick them up.”
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Unknown Author
“Our prayers are often filled with selfish "wants"; God always answers with what we need.”

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Sam Veda
“People, who rise above their petty individual selfishness and work for the welfare of society are considered patriots.”
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Napoleon Hill
“Great achievement is usually born of great sacrifice, and is never the result of selfishness.”
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Oscar Wilde
“Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live.”
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Helen Keller
“As selfishness and complaint pervert and cloud the mind, so love with its joy clears and sharpens the vision”
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Cesare Pavese
“If you wish to travel far and fast, travel light. Take off all your envies, jealousies, unforgiveness, selfishness and fears.”
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Blaise Pascal
“Those who do not hate their own selfishness and regard themselves as more important than the rest of the world are blind because the truth lies elsewhere”
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Neal A. Maxwell
“Selfishness is much more than an ordinary problem because it activates all the cardinal sins! It is the detonator in the breaking of the Ten Commandments.”
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W. L. Orme
“If all the people in this world, in which we live, were as selfish as a few of the people in this world, in which we live, there would be no world in which to live.”
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William Arthur Ward
“Forgiveness is the key that unlocks the door of resentment and the handcuffs of hate. It is a power that breaks the chains of bitterness and the shackles of selfishness.”
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Mary Cholmondeley
“Every day I live I am more convinced that the waste of life lies in the love we have not given, the powers we have not used, the selfish prudence that will risk nothing and which, shirking pain, misses happiness as well.”
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Sir Walter Scott
“Sordid selfishness doth contract and narrow our benevolence, and cause us, like serpents, to infold ourselves within ourselves, and to turn out our stings to the entire world besides.”
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Ezra Taft Benson
“Selfishness is one of the more common faces of pride. ‘How everything affects me’ is the center of all that matters—self-conceit, self-pity, worldly self-fulfillment, self-gratification, and self-seeking.”
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Neal A. Maxwell
“In one degree or another we all struggle with selfishness. Since it is so common, why worry about selfishness anyway? Because selfishness is really self-destruction in slow motion.
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Robert D. Hales
“Selfishness is so frequently at the core of family relationship problems. When individuals focus on their own selfish interests, they miss opportunities to listen, to understand, or to consider the other person’s feelings or needs
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Neal A. Maxwell
“The early and familiar forms of selfishness are: building up self at the expense of others, claiming or puffing credit, being glad when others go wrong, resenting the genuine successes of others, preferring public vindication to private reconciliation, and taking “advantage of one because of his words”
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James Allen
“The selfishness must be discovered and understood before it can be removed. It is powerless to remove itself, neither will it pass away of itself. Darkness ceases only when light is introduced; so ignorance can only be dispersed by Knowledge; selfishness by Love.”
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Dalai Lama
“I believe all suffering is caused by ignorance. People inflict pain on others in the selfish pursuit of their happiness or satisfaction. Yet true happiness comes from a sense of peace and contentment, which in turn must be achieved through the cultivation of altruism, of love and compassion, and elimination of ignorance, selfishness, and greed."
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Gordon B. Hinckley
“Why all of these broken homes? What happens to marriages that begin with sincere love and a desire to be loyal and faithful and true one to another? There is no simple answer. I acknowledge that. But it appears to me that there are some obvious reasons that account for a very high percentage of these problems. I say this out of experience in dealing with such tragedies. I find selfishness to be the root cause of most of it.”
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Gordon B. Hinckley:
“Selfishness so often is the basis of money problems, which are a very serious and real factor affecting the stability of family life. Selfishness is at the root of adultery, the breaking of solemn and sacred covenants to satisfy selfish lust. Selfishness is the antithesis of love. It is a cankering expression of greed. It destroys self-discipline. It obliterates loyalty. It tears up sacred covenants. It afflicts both men and women.”
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H. Burke Peterson
“The dictionary describes a selfish person as one who is ‘concerned excessively or exclusively with oneself: seeking pleasure or well-being without regard for others.’ May we add, a selfish person is often one who refers to ‘I,’ ‘me,’ and ‘mine’ rather than to ‘we,’ ‘ours,’ ‘yours,’ or ‘theirs.’ This person is anxious to be in the limelight, to be on center stage in life’s little dramas. He or she may be a poor listener, or a conversation monopolizer. Selfishness is the great unknown sin. No selfish person ever thought himself to be selfish.”
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